PumpkinBomb

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How would you redesign the emotional spectrum?

By PumpkinBomb 14 Comments

 I've been thinking a bit about the Green Lantern emotional spectrum and how it's constructed a bit oddly. For one thing, indigo and violet are rarely used in common parlance (and there's no scientific difference anyways), while the prime number of colours prevents the spectrum from having symmetry. Greed is more of a sociological concept, love and compassion are a little too similar, and willpower isn't an emotion by any stretch of the imagination. Yellow power rings don't even feed off of fear! Much of these difficulties are constraints of history; but if we were to start from the beginning, here's how I'd have done it.
 
Red - Anger (opposes serenity) 

  • positive: courage (opposes aloofness)
  • negative: hatred (opposes trust)
Orange - Joy (opposes grief)
  • positive: hope (opposes guilt)
  • negative: indulgence (opposes remorse)
Yellow - Pride (opposes love) 
  • positive: confidence (opposes envy)
  • negative: contempt (opposes compassion)
Green - Serenity (opposes anger) 
  • positive: trust (opposes hatred)
  • negative: indifference (opposes courage)
Blue - Grief (opposes joy)
  • positive: remorse (opposes hedonism)
  • negative: guilt (opposes hope)
Purple - Love (opposes pride) 
  • positive: compassion (opposes contempt)
  • negative: desire (opposes confidence)
 
There's a natural conflict between opposing colours, and any given corpsman would have the potential to follow the light or dark side, as it were.  I think this provides a lot more flexibility and storytelling space than the current version. Thoughts? Implications? How would you have constructed it?
14 Comments
14 Comments
Posted by PumpkinBomb

(Could I get this moved to the Green Lantern forum? Thanks.)

Posted by Icarusflies
@PumpkinBomb: (Moved it to the Emotional Spectrum forum for you)
Moderator
Edited by BagginsRA

That was an very interesting look at the emotional spectrum. Ligh Side and Dark Side is quite jedi-esque, but it might fit. 
 
I'm beggining some designs on this on my on, I'll post it when I have it ready. 
 
Just for the record, the colors of the Official Emotional Spectrum are based on the "Seven Bands" of a rainbow, ROY G BIV, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. If you want to say that there is no difference between Indigo and Violet, then you might as well just say that there is no difference between Orange and Red,  giving the first "spectrum" Newton created. Or far more, since there is, to the science, no band, just different wave-lenghts, in which not seven nor six, but infinite colors arise. I'm just saying! 
 
But is nice to see others ideais on it. Too bad only you posted yours. Hopefully this will grow in the next few months. 
Posted by BagginsRA

Part of this is in another post about the Emotional Spectrum. 
 
See, most people complain that Willpower and a few others in the Emotional Spectrum (from now on ES), are NOT, by FAR, Emotions. I do not think that the stretch is in considering the Willpower an Emotion, but considering the ES an EMOTIONAL Spectrum. If you consider what Henshaw says when he was being interrogated by the Guardians, in the first issue of the Sinestro Corps War, "Without life, there will be no place for anger, greed or fear", as to what Ganthet and Sayd respond "There will be no place for hope or compassion. - Or love." This was not just a random talk about life. This was the very foundation of what Life, embodied by the White Lantern, is. Those parts are a portion of life in a very basic level. So the E in ES should not be Emotional but, I don't know, Existencial Spectrum. 
 
You should check the topic Wheel of Emotions :: Emoticons, colours & real life psychology in the Emotional Spectrum Forum. There are some interesting ideas by Plutchik, that I believe helped you build yours. Also, a few comments on the ES. 
 
About the lack of balance in the Canon ES, I think your looking at it the wrong way. If you consider that Willpower is, in fact, fully neutral, then going above (Blue, Indigo and Violet) is going towards Positive Emotions, and going down ( Yellow, Orange, Red), is going towards Negative Emotions. It is a manner of balance, since Willpower alone can lead someone to do as much evil acts as good acts. I'm really going off-topic here. 
 
About the energy feed of yellow rings. If a Red Lantern must have Rage, an Orange, Greed, a Green, Willpower, a Blue, Hope, an Indigo, Compassion, and a Violet, Love, how come the Yello Lantern must make others feel fear? Yeah, that's just pure non-sense. It was one of the story constrains you've talked about. It would be hard to create a good Corps that is filled with fear...
Posted by Gambit1024

What about the Indigo Tribe?

Posted by BagginsRA
@Gambit1024:
What about what with the Indigo Tribe? 
 
You mean the fact that there is no Indigo Tribe in Pumpkinbomb re-design of ES? He mention it in the begging, he sees no real difference between the colors Violet and Indigo, so he mixed it in the Purple Corps. I think differently, but that's HIS re-design.
 
Also, I now some people might say it so, so just to clarify: Pumpkinbomb didn't mixed the emotions when making the oppositions. Aloofness is quite easly seen as indifference, envy as desire, and so on and so forth. Do not be picky just because he used different words.
Edited by Agent9149

I would have each ring to give off a certain nature..and influence the environment around it 
there are no opposites in my emotional spectrum..they all compliment each other 
there is a positive and negative in every emotion

 
 
black-true love
white-false love
 
red-passion/wrath
 when influenced by false love red becomes light red- infatuation/obsession

yellow - happiness/obliviousness  
when influenced by false love yellow becomes light yellow - pleasure/ignorance

blue- sadness/hatred  
when influenced by false love blue becomes light blue- cynicism/depression
 
the combination of passion and sorrow equals violent - hope/despair 
the combination of passion and happiness equals orange - determination/arrogance 
the combination of happiness and sorrow equals green - serenity/apathy 
 
the combination of happiness, passion, and sorrow equals black- true love/ 
 

I made my own picture =]
Posted by Wolverine0628

That would be interesting if they could choose light or dark, no matter what color ring they had.

Posted by fidelcastrate

I would just get rid of the whole concept. Yeah, it allows you to write large-scale, epic events that can make a lot of money but the truth is the emotional spectrum has very little potential for good storytelling. Why? Well in addition to being a disgusting oversimplification of the human condition (e.g. love is inherently parasitic and predatory?), the concept is completely incongruous with the Green Lantern's mythos and what it's story fundamentally represents.
If we're lucky, 10 years down the road we'll get a Crisis event that destroys all the emotional embodiments besides Parallax and Ion. A big reveal that the rest were Maltusian False Gods or something. If the emotional spectrum can be retconned into being the foundation of the Green Lantern mythos, it certainly can be retconned out.

Posted by Jonny_Rogers
@Wolverine0628: I think about this kind of thing all the time, but I never thought about it in that way. How awesome would a good yellow or red lantern be?; afterall, Marvel based Hulk on anger.
Posted by Wolverine0628
@Jonny_Rogers:
Yeah.  This would come in especially handy for people like Mera and Sinestro, I think.
Posted by Herokiller12344


I would have it like this

 

Blue = Happiness, which is powered by Hope and is Opposed by Saddness

 

Red = Anger, which is powered by Hatred and is opposed by Happiness

 

Yellow = Sadness, which is powered by Fear and fueled with Hatred and is Opposed by Pride

 

Green = Pride, which is powered by Will and is Opposed by Love

 

Purple = Love, which is powered by Compassion and is Opposed by Apathy

 

Black = Apathy, which is powered by Fear and the ability to simply not care which is Opposed by Empathy

 

White = Empathy, Which is powered by Love, Pride, and Happiness and is Heavily Deterring to Apathy

 

Explanation: Happiness can easliy stem from the concept of Hope in any situation, which is the point of the Blue Lanterns.

 

Anger In the words of Yoda can lead to Hate, which is a branch of Rage which the Red lanterns stand for.

 

Sadness and fear go hand in hand imagine being locked in a dark room while you yourself fear the blackness, Hate can easliy lead to you having a flood of depression. Its also weak to pride because some can be too proud to fear.

 

Pride stems from the will do continue doing what you do, while at the same time "Even the proudest hearts can be broken, with Love"

 

Love is (Com)Passion, but in the presence of one that lacks any shred of emotion is easily corrupted

 

Apathy is the Nihulistic belief of just not caring. Fear can break your sense of Hope, Pride, and Love and paves the way for one to become a blob of emo hate, which is in a sense living death.

 

Empathy is the ability to care and the responsibilty to care, Love, Pride and Happiness are all the emotions that imply the love of life and deterence of Apathy.

 

And Then there is Orange, the corrupted version of Fear, Fear of not having enough AKA Greed, its not its own Corps more of a Terrorist Organization in my version of things.

Posted by PowerHerc
@PumpkinBomb:
This is something I'll have to ponder further.
Edited by COBRAMORPH

I'd only have the Green, Yellow & Red Lantern Corps.

Black, White, Blue, Orange & Indigo are interesting, but dont really have much to sustain them for the long run.

Violet is just an enemy that was expanded into a corp.

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